The Fast speed test

https://fast.com/ The Fast speed test 0 2/5 stars ★★☆☆☆ Hans van der Graaf Pop

In general, the Fast speed test is not a recommended speed test, mainly because this speed test is not accurate (at least at lower speeds) and because this speed test is -despite the name- relative slow. Besides that the Fast uses a lot of data for a test. Nevertheless, Fast is a popular speed test

 

With an adverstised speed of 100 Mbps and an average measured internet speed of 86.7 Mbps, we conclude that the Fast speed test is not an accurate speed test (Accuracy score: 20/100).

The Fast speed test is a conservative speed test. That is, this speed test measures structural an internet speed lower than the advertised speed.

The logo of the Fast speed test

When Netflix, Inc. launched Fast in May 2016, it was big news.

This was not because Netflix created a speed test. The main reason was that Netflix created with Fast the simplest internet speed test ever.

The secret? A great user experience.

Pros

This Fast speed test has the following pros:

  1. The Fast speed test is an original speed test
  2. There are no cookies placed
  3. The Fast speed test uses the Netflix servers to test your download speed (because of this you should be able to detect with the Fast speed test if your ISP is throttling your video streaming)

A great user experience

The following features, among others, make the user experience great:

  1. The user interface is clear
    1. only the download speed is measured and shown
    2. there are no ads
  2. The speed test starts directly
    1. there are no options
    2. there isn't a cookie banner
  3. The download speed is shown in rounded numbers

Cons

This Fast speed test has the following cons:

  1. It takes a long time to determine the final internet speed
  2. Fast has a relatively large standard deviation
  3. Fast is not accurate (although we have indications that the higher the speed you measure, the more accurate Fast is)

When to use Fast

Fast is slow and not that accurate (although we have indications that at higher speeds (400 Mbps and higher), Fast is much more accurate). Hence depending on your internet speed it might be better to use another speed test. Read our advice for a better speed test that suits your needs.

In general, the use of the Fast internet speed test is only recommended when you have problems watching Netflix.

How we tested

We have tested the Fast speed test in a standardized way. This makes speed tests easy to compare.

The following results form the basis for this speed test review:

  1. Abort/pause possible: yes
  2. Ad-free: yes
  3. Average download speed of 3 measurements: 86.7 Mbps
  4. Clear indication of the current focus: no
  5. Correct back button behavior: yes
  6. Flesch Reading Ease score of the privacy policy: 18.76
  7. Number of ACheckers known problems: 10
  8. Number of cookies: 0
  9. Number of measured features: 0
  10. Number of Wave errors: 8
  11. Observatory score: 50
  12. Tingtun score: 78.79
  13. Total data use of 3 measurements: 953.97 MiBs
  14. Total time to complete 3 tests: 76.2 seconds